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PayPal rushes in to save Android Market
In news that plays like heavenly, August music upon the ears of disenfranchised Android users throughout the world, a PayPal checkout option may soon appear on the Android Market.It seems Bloomberg is running with an anonymous tip, and the story goes on to say that the deal is by no means confirmed -- but it sure would make a lot of sense if it's true! Currently you can only buy Android Market apps with Google Checkout, a rather lacklustre service that has failed to gain International traction.
As of today, four years after Google Checkout's launch, you can still only buy Android apps if you live in one of only thirteen lucky countries (not to mention, you can't even download free apps from more than half of the world!) If a PayPal option became available, at least twice as many Android users would suddenly find themselves able to buy apps -- take a look at PayPal's list of supported countries!
As an aside, I wonder what Microsoft has planned for paid app and game sales on its upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices. We're a few years into the smartphone surge, and as yet only Apple has successfully tapped the market with iTunes. The market is wide open, and if Microsoft can finally launch a successful mobile platform...
And thus concludes your dose of possibly-maybe-might-happen-in-the-next-few-weeks-or-months morning news.
[via Ubergizmo]
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsOskieeAug 18th 2010 8:05AM
Wow... this would change the game quite a bit.
xdreamwalkerAug 18th 2010 8:27AM
I kind of like Palm's approach, just pay directly with your little plastic card.
Slashee the CowAug 18th 2010 8:58AM
Not sure if this would help app sellers. It'd be nice, though. Not that I publish apps on the market. I'd like to. But my part of the world doesn't fall into the even shorter list of countries from which developers can sell paid apps (http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=150324). Yes, Australia. Home of banned games, high prices, low download speeds (at high prices... I get 50GB of downloads (and uploads combined) for AU$60/month, at 1.5mbps... the less said about the AU$2/MB data on my phone, the better... but all that's a rant for another day), and people who'd like to sell Android apps but can't.
I'd consider making free apps, but being an unemployed student, I really can't justify the cost of registering as an Android developer without being able to make any money out of it.
Still... I'd much rather do that than develop for iPhone... higher fees, and only having a PC and no money kind of makes it a rather impossible prospect.
Sebastian AnthonyAug 18th 2010 9:00AM
Doh, Australia :(
Who knows, maybe Microsoft will subsidise the whole thing and offer free developer kits -- I wouldn't be surprised... (their WP7 toolkit was easy to obtain, right?)
Again, there's so much space in the market. I'm really surprised Google has moved so slowly. Android handsets are outselling iPhones! GOGOG!
sRcAug 18th 2010 11:28AM
far as MS for WP7, Sebastian, the platform that their (free) toolkit is built on is cross-platform so, since you can already run anything you build with it on PC, I don't think they'd offer much in the way of deep discounts on dev phones.
Martin H. HamstadAug 18th 2010 12:02PM
Good news for me. I have a PayPal account and I have just bought my 1st Android phone, but live in Norway which is not one of the lucky 1 countries.
Sebastian AnthonyAug 18th 2010 12:02PM
All of Scandinavia is missing! Crazy... they have the most money to spend :)
Martin H. HamstadAug 18th 2010 12:03PM
lucky 13 countries
DarthPaulAug 18th 2010 2:41PM
I have bought 1 (yes ONE) app from Android Market & will not do so again until they fix the crap lack of currency conversion because for a $1 app I ended up paying £1.50 in commission to my bank.
Paypal would be a proper step in the right direction